New ideas for method comparison: a Monte Carlo power analysis

Abstract: In this paper some new proposals for method comparison are presented. On the one hand, two new robust regressions, the M-Deming and the MM-Deming, have been developed by modifying Linnet's method of the weighted Deming regression. The M-Deming regression shows superior qualities to the Passing-Bablok regression; it does not suffer from bias when the data to be validated have a reduced precision, and therefore turns out to be much more reliable. On the other hand, a graphical method (box and ellipses) for validations has been developed which is also equipped with a unified statistical test. In this test the intercept and slope pairs obtained from a bootstrap process are combined into a multinomial distribution by robust determination of the covariance matrix. The Mahalanobis distance from the point representing the null hypothesis is evaluated using the $\chi^{2}$ distribution. It is emphasized that the interpretation of the graph is more important than the probability obtained from the test. The unified test has been evaluated through Monte Carlo simulations, comparing the theoretical $\alpha$ levels with the empirical rate of rejections (type-I errors). In addition, a power comparison of the various (new and old) methods was conducted using the same techniques. This unified method, regardless of the regression chosen, shows much higher power and allows a significant reduction in the sample size required for validations.